It’s this time of the year when Hong Kong is blessed with quite a few public holidays and, luckily for us, they all fall on Fridays or Mondays, allowing us to fly to nearby Asian countries for long weekend getaways. We opted for Vietnam first, and more specifically Ho Chi Minh and its neighbouring Dong Nai province.

Ho Chi Minh, commonly known as Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam, with a population of around 9.3 million in 2023. Situated in the Southeast region of Vietnam, the city surrounds the Saigon River and covers about 2,061 km² (source: Wikipedia). We didn’t spend any time in the city though - we explored the Dong Nai Biosphere Nature Reserve instead.

We spent 2 nights camping and herping with Nguyễn Huy and Pham Minh Hieu, who we highly recommend for herping trips in Vietnam. We felt very welcomed and cared for - thank you!

The photos below and on Flickr don’t represent even half of the species we saw - there just wasn’t enough time to document them all.

There was no rain on the first night (although the humidity was still very high) and then a massive rainstorm arrived on the second afternoon and early evening, receding just as we went into the forest, which let us experience the jungle under slightly different conditions.

One of the very first snakes we saw was a Boiga cyanea (green cat snake) and Trimeresurus rubeus (ruby-eyed green pitviper); we saw quite a few individuals of the latter during our stay.

There also was the very cute Pareas berdmorei (Mengla snail-eating snake), which is a common species in Dong Nai Biosphere Nature Reserve.

During a stream walk on the first night, we also encountered a Subsessor bocourti (Bocourt's water snake), a massive, stout and overall… not a very friendly snake.

On the second night, apart from the species we already saw on the first night, we also spotted a couple of Rhabdophis siamensis (Siamese red-necked keelbacks) and an absolutely stunning Bungarus candidus (Malayan krait).

The jungle was noisy. Loud frog calls and continuous insect chirping could be heard throughout the night. Artur was mostly interested in flying frogs and we saw two species of those: Rhacophorus helenae and Rhacophorus annamensis.

Lizards were also there, including Acanthosaura sp., Cyrtodactylus cattienensis and Physignathus cocincinus.

We were amazed by the number of different tailless whip scorpions (Amblypygids), scorpions and vinegaroons we encountered mostly on or under trees.

During the only day we had, we went to explore the jungle a little bit in the afternoon. It was unbelievably hot and humid but… butterflies and some other invertebrates came out in great numbers.

And then there were spiders! Absolutely everywhere. We had to be cautious about using trees as support when moving along the stream since many spiders - including massive tarantulas - and other invertebrates used them to rest.

More photos on Flickr.